How to Fish Spinners For Lake Erie Walleye

Spinner fishing for Lake Erie Walleye is the my favorite technique. We took a quick trip and caught a limit within an hour.
Capt. Ross Robertson has made his complete living chasing walleye as a full time professional angler for more than 20 years. Through the years he has worn many hats including time as a fishing guide, boat salesman, TV host, outdoor writer, product designer, tournament fisherman, speaker, radio host and podcaster to name a few.
Ross fishes ice-out to ice-up on the Great Lakes. He spends the majority of the year walleye fishing on Lake Erie’s Western and Central basins.
Check out more from Bigwater Fishing
/ bigwaterfishing
/ bigwaterfishing
bigwaterfishing.com/
Download Bigwater Fishing Podcast Episodes
iTunes podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/bigw...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0i8zS8t...
Google Podcasts podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...

[@lakeerieicefishing]

Best way to fish spinners is with Capt. Ross!

[@TheJoelClements]

Awesome video Ross 👍

[@danward2490]

Very good information

[@captainchrisfishing]

I fished that same area sunday morning and we caught fish on purple demon spoons and redhead wonderbread bandit and flickerminnows

[@GabrielIvanflyesfishing]

Very nice😅😮😢😢

[@srsoutdoors348]

Good afternoon, hoping you could let me know what rods and specs you where using in this video. Looking for a few crank bait trolling rod ideas as well. I normally fish the East side of Michigan in all of the popular walleye waterways. Looking to update some of my trolling gear. Love the teach and tips videos you do. Keep the podcasts and videos coming. Thanks for any ideas.

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Shimano compre 8'3... MD cranks and mmd for spinners

[@gunnrunnerfishing]

Thanks Ross for the descriptive video! What weight are you using to get the spinners down to depth?

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Bead chain....check out our spinner Playlist...break down vids in there

[@depalebe]

Hi Ross. Have you ever tried the Mepps crawler harness?

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Wasn't aware they had a harness

[@livebig247]

Do you ever use mono and do the loop trick for easy release of the planner boards? I like not having to shuffle those poles around like that. There must be a benefit though for doing it the way you are.

[@Bigwaterfishing]

not that simple. that method can work better under some circumstances such as speed fishing cranks. when going slow things dont have to pull back

[@livebig247]

@@Bigwaterfishing Makes sense. Thanks for the reply!

[@slimshadycustoms]

@@livebig247 I have my boards set-up to release and it works fine with spinners or cranks. I have the black medium strength OR clips on the front and the red OR-16s in the back with the pin in the middle. With tattle flags, of course. When a fish hits, we can just give it a quick snap of your wrist and the line comes out of the front release and the board drops back and out of the way of the inside boards. We do need to wait a few seconds for it to clear before starting to reel. However, with cranks we can re-set lines "down the chute" and have them go back into their original spot. But you can't really do that with spinners because the sinker will sink too far as you are letting it out. So instead, we just make the rod we are setting the inside board and move them all over one spot. The other tip that I tell "newbies" is to always check your drag after you take the board off. Big walleyes like to make that one last surge at the boat and if your drag is too tight from bringing in the board, they will either break off or the hook pulls out.

[@livebig247]

@Slimshady Customs I agree with all you just said, especially the drag. I always "play" my fish in. I figured I would ask why he was doing that thinking that there was some other reason I couldn't figure out. I figure it would be possible to go slow enough so it doesn't work. I guess I don't go slow enough to not have it work, but usually about 1.2-1.5 or so with spinners. Holding and letting it clear is key! I just use the orange clip that the board comes with, no issues. I can also reset my board to its same spot, but you have to be careful. I drop it in on the opposite side and keep slight tension letting it slip a little before bringing it back in. Just gotta make sure boat is running straight first and get it back far enough before locking it in so the weight picks up good enough to clear. Or, like you said, slide the lines out works good as well.

[@OwlKing67]

Ross- Do you ever keep any fish you catch? FYI- I run my clickers as well, keeps slight tension while setting multiple rods trolling.

[@Bigwaterfishing]

I rarely keep myself

[@pasarea999]

More of the same ! Wish you just told us already at least how heavy the snaps were and the leads 👀🤙

[@Bigwaterfishing]

when you fixate on specific numbers you miss the point. On the very next day it was totally different with both in the same area. the system is the key and plug in the changes form day to day and sometimes hr by hr

[@pasarea999]

@@Bigwaterfishing I know you don't believe me but I get it and I do catch fish I just wanted to know what worked that day that's all. Big fan from Ontario Canada

[@captainchrisfishing]

@@Bigwaterfishing really you should focus on the fish in the top 3rd of the water column most active fish I've found

[@captainchrisfishing]

@@Bigwaterfishing I'm looking for them donkeys

[@slimshadycustoms]

@@Bigwaterfishing That's a great point. I usually start each day by breaking the water column into 3rds. Let's say the water is 27 feet deep. I want to have my highest line at 8-9 feet, my middle line at 14-15 feet and my lowest line at 22-23 feet. That way, I have a line in each 1/3rd of the column. Once we start getting bites, we can determine which level is most productive and adjust from there. As you mentioned in your video, too many guys see the deep fish on the graph and only fish at that level. Over the years, the largest fish that we have caught have typically come from that highest lines. I once caught a 9.5 lb fish 7 feet down over 65 feet of water on a flat-calm sunny day in early August. 90+ degrees and a surface temp in the high 70s.

[@cameronk3601]

What kind of cranks do you recommend running now that its july? Been using flicker minnows behind dipseys here in the eastern basin with decent success. Wondering if theres something better i could be using.

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Lot of factors involved to what works best...but thunderstick are a favorite

[@cameronk3601]

@@Bigwaterfishing I'll have to look into that are they made by Berkley? And what speed you run them between like 2 and 2.5 I'd guess?

[@cameronk3601]

@@Bigwaterfishing ahh I see they're made by storm... Definitely gonna order some thanks for the reply and being generous enough to share your knowledge!

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Storm

[@kevinl8304]

It would be nice if you showed us your rig setup

[@Bigwaterfishing]

we have entire videos to check out that just show our rigging

[@kevinl8304]

@@Bigwaterfishing ok thanks. Ill look for them

[@Bigwaterfishing]

@@kevinl8304 look under playlist spinner

[@kevinl8304]

@@Bigwaterfishing 🙂👍

[@dannyramsey]

you think theirs any eyes by buffalo on canada side?

[@Bigwaterfishing]

I'm sure there is

[@dannyramsey]

@@Bigwaterfishing Thanks for the info

[@candyhicks-sf9de]

Is that Walnut Creek boat launch?

[@Bigwaterfishing]

No

[@brucecarroll2895]

I noticed your wasnt using your kicker motor, was you just using your troling motor to troll?

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Just the minn kota

[@brucecarroll2895]

The rod straight out the back what setting do you have on the dypsie diver for that rod? Possibly a zero. Wanting to learn how to run 6 rods with dypsies Sorry you was using dypsies in another video

[@Bigwaterfishing]

O to 1. We have a bunch of dipsy videos that might be helpful you should check out ....several show this

[@brucecarroll2895]

@@Bigwaterfishing thank you

[@randymiller5008]

Y'all pay attention to what he said ??? Fish as light as you can get away with 🤙🎣✌️

[@jeffmcelroy5168]

You say really deep not so deep. What do you mean 20ft 30ft 40ft what do you mean. Then how are you getting deep. You said spinners. Erie deeries? spinner rigs? or what?

[@lakeerieicefishing]

I can answer this one. Crawler harnesses, inline weights to get them to the depth you need.

[@susanquiter2891]

Ross, can you take some notes from the Linder boys and give more information in your videos. Take a couple minutes to show a close up of the lure(s) you are using, how it is rigged, terminal gear, shots of the locator, depths, water temps, contour lines, time of year etc. We enjoy teaching videos. If we can't learn something from your videos, we will probably unsubscribe. Thanks.

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Check out our play list on spinners for other details and variation in edu. If you didn't learn anything from this video you must be a very good spinner fisherman

[@randymiller5008]

I try and tell these kids... But they never listen 😅 wtf

[@Bigwaterfishing]

Facts😂